Transitional stages

Let me leave these pictures of a seven months old infant to let you give you a sense of serial changes taking place in the face of a child, when a stranger came into the room.  

There are five stages in the way a baby would grow into social awareness from about three months to ten months of age.

The first stage is familiarity of the face of the constant care giver, which a baby may express from the third month with fixing on the face of the care giver and tracking him or her while moving about in the baby's vicinity. A baby kicks the legs and moves the hands  in the air, often accompanied by cooing sounds which increase in intensity till the care giver gives attention to the baby.  Some babies would even cry till  what the baby wants is met.

The second stage in this sequence is making a distinction between a familiar person and an unfamiliar person. A baby would normally tolerate an unfamiliar person and would be comfortable to be carried, but the baby indicates to be comfortable only with the familiar person after a while.

The third stage is baby's adaptation to the environment by being engaged in self play. A baby would play with his or her body parts, or toys, and observes mobiles or moving objects or pays attention to sounds of telephone, music, etc. During such a phase a  baby can be left unattended by an adult for short periods as the baby can engage oneself for a while.

The fourth stage is when a baby is fully aware of strangers and would indicate tolerance or anxiety. This picture sequence in this blog is that of such a stage. At seven months this baby looked most uncomfortable with the stranger and indicated a distressing look at his face, although it was short lived. Some would quickly adapt to be being comfortable and others would cry or cling on to the care giver. Fortunately fear or anxiety of due to frequent exposure to strangers do not emotionally disturb an infant adversely. 

The fifth stage  towards the tenth month is one of being comfortable in a social setting of children and some adults. As most babies would crawl and move about at this stage, they are already used to different situations and would therefore be less intimidated by sudden changes. They would even indicate pleasure of play in such instances. 

The key to help babies to go through all these stages smoothly and confidently is to create a stability of care givers. 

This is the challenges most working mothers face. When they return after maternity leave, who should care for the baby when an extended family is not available. Do we commit the baby to a domestic helper or to a creche!

An important consideration is that every baby would need constancy of care and care givers. When there are frequent changes in the first year, it can unsettle the baby for a while.

MC.C.mathew(text and photo)